Lantau 70 with ATM Champion Macaneras

It’s been over three years since Hong Kong’s trail classic Lantau 70 was announced as a new points race for the Asia Trail Master Championship and finally the weekend has arrived. LT 70 starts at 8:30 am in Mui Wo on Saturday and plenty of great runners will be toeing the line, including local favourite Jeff Campbell and reigning ATM Champion Arnie Macaneras.

It will be the first of two scheduled points races for this season’s ATM Championship ranking, with the second one - Dark 45 - set for 1 October. The start and finish may be beachside, but unfortunately the weather forecast indicates the possibility of rainfall in the morning. This will certainly have its impact on the runners and the technicality of the 70km course, which has most elevation gain and loss in the first half.

Jeff Campbell always starts a 70km race in Hong Kong as the man-to-beat, and it is no different this year. However, the Canadian-born will almost certainly be pushed forward by a wide field of other strong victory contenders. Davao’s Arnie Macaneras - who is now supported by T8 - is keen to show a solid performance tomorrow, three months after his fantastic ATM Championship title win on Mount Apo. As a newcomer, we always need to see first how he will handle the many steps and stairs that are so typical of Hong Kong’s trails, but purely on running pace Macaneras should be a good match for Campbell on a distance of 70 km. 2018 ATM Champion and in great shape lately, Alessandro Sherpa, will also have a few words to say. The Italian has been based in Hong Kong since his victory in Dalat Ultra Trail three weeks ago. Just a week ago, he picked up another win in a local 50k race despite significant digestive issues during that race. Winning Lantau 70 would be a big thing, and we know Sherpa likes this type of challenge. There’s plenty of other podium candidates tomorrow, and who knows one of these pulls of an upset. Switzerland’s Salomon Wetstein has been a Hong Kong trail star for many years now, and he is a previous winner of Lantau 70 in 2019 - the last ‘normal’ physical edition before covid. Furthermore, there’s the likes of Julien Bonnard, Dennis Theodosis and China’s Hua Zhaohong.

The women’s 70km race promises to be a cracker, too. The race victory will be contested between many Hong Kong based top runners and others who have been protagonists in ATM for several years. The 2018 ATM Champion from Indonesia, Ruth Theresia, is back on the ATM scene for the first time after three years. The covid crisis was also for her a big life-changer, and Ruth has had to be a lot more selective in her trail races. Still, she hasn’t lost her competitiveness at all as we can tell from her recent victories in local Indonesian races. Tomorrow she will be up against the likes of Aggy Sabanal-Marte - the still young Filipino who was actually Ruth Theresia’s first runner-up in the aforementioned 2018 ATM Championship season. Aggy has become a mother since then, and just like Ruth been working on the way back to the front of South East Asia’s trail races. As with Ruth, that has translated already in a couple of race wins back home, including MUSPO 100 last July. What struck us last season is that Aggy Sabanal is now more than a strong mountain climber, she has actually developed a good running pace, too. It will be very interesting to see how she fares on Lantau. Dolores Salles is another Filipino who will throw her hat in the ring, and who knows obstacle racer Rozel Vivero produces the upset? Japan’s Tamae Harada is usually in the mix for a podium place, and so is Singapore’s Vincere Zeng - winner of Cameron Ultra 100 last year. Zeng is a busy bee and mainly a high mountain enthusiast, but that Malaysian victory shows she can also run fast. We are curious to discover how local favourites such as Rhoda Cheung, Alice McLeod, Katia Kucher, and Katrina Hamlin will fare against the aformentioned.

We will be reporting live from Lantau 70 from start to finish on our usual ATM channels, including YouTube, subject to connectivity. Absent from tomorrow’s start field is John Ellis, who is out of action with a nasty achilles injury. John will be present, however, and we hope he can share a lot of insight into this race during our video recordings tomorrow.

In addition, 30 elite runners will carry our GPS trackers, so you can follow the action as it happens via https://live.asiatrailmaster.com/2023lantau70/ . The platform works on both mobile and laptop.